Interesting points about AF and it's effect on optical quality.. A few points though. The slow focusing due to moving large elements didn't stop Canon from making a 85 1.2L and again, with the mk2 version. Also a lot of the current ZE lenses take little to no torque to focus the lens, surely most of the ZE designs could be adapted to autofocus without much difficulty, and without the need to redesign the lens.

Accuracy is something all lenses/cameras face.. And sometimes even if the camera/lens combo isn't always accurate, it's still better in fast moving situations to use autofocus then it is to try and manual focus.. At least for some of us.
That and most focusing screens aren't optimized for any lens below 2.8, so really manual focusing can't always be accurate on ALL bodies.

Anyway, I agree that it would be nice to have the ZE lineup in both auto and manual casings.

adamdewilde wrote:
Interesting points about AF and it's effect on optical quality.. A few points though. The slow focusing due to moving large elements didn't stop Canon from making a 85 1.2L and again, with the mk2 version. Also a lot of the current ZE lenses take little to no torque to focus the lens, surely most of the ZE designs could be adapted to autofocus without much difficulty, and without the need to redesign the lens.

if you put a big enough motor in it anything is possible. 85L vI was too slow focusing to track anything moving, the 85L vII is ~twice as fast but still slow enough to make it less than ideal for tracking. there is a reason the lens has focus by wire when most canon lenses have direct focus btw. AF speed on it is probably fast enough for most of the people who use it though (portrait and wedding photographers) since their subjects tend not to cover a lot of ground fast.

the canon lens could focus faster if they made it even bigger by redesigning it to have a fast focus group, it would be leica priced and even huger if they did though.

the ZE lenses could be made AF super easily, they'd just be 30% or more larger (mostly a diameter increase), made of plastic with lower tolerances, and the larger ones would be 1990s slow to focus. alternatively they could redesign the lenses and make them almost as "small" as the current Z* line and have modern fast autofocus. the question there would be would they be worse performers, worse build, or leica m priced?

sebboh wrote:
if you put a big enough motor in it anything is possible. 85L vI was too slow focusing to track anything moving, the 85L vII is ~twice as fast but still slow enough to make it less than ideal for tracking. there is a reason the lens has focus by wire when most canon lenses have direct focus btw. AF speed on it is probably fast enough for most of the people who use it though (portrait and wedding photographers) since their subjects tend not to cover a lot of ground fast.

the canon lens could focus faster if they made it even bigger by redesigning it to have a fast focus group, it would be leica priced and even huger if they did though.

the ZE lenses could be made AF super easily, they'd just be 30% or more larger (mostly a diameter increase), made of plastic with lower tolerances, and the larger ones would be 1990s slow to focus. alternatively they could redesign the lenses and make them almost as "small" as the current Z* line and have modern fast autofocus. the question there would be would they be worse performers, worse build, or leica m priced?...Show more →

Fair enough.. I think professionals who need/want the gear would pay though. And doctors and lawyers and such would also pay

I think one strategy that has often been employed to create good bokeh is to rely on under corrected spherical aberrations (SA). It seems the old Noct Nikkor did this and many other lenses (another good example would be the Leica R 80 f/1.4). These lenses do seem to create good bokeh, IMO, but they do so at wide apertures at the expense of sharpness and especially contrast (the lenses can be sharp and contrasty stopped down, however, when SA diminishes). I like this strategy (and have several lenses that seem to use it), however, it seems you are always in a tradeoff between good sharpness and good bokeh if this is the strategy employed.

I'm not at all sure that such a tradeoff is inevitable. I can think of a few lenses that seem to be both sharp and have good bokeh. The C/Y mount Zeiss 100 f/2 for example. It seems the designers of the Otus 55 have dramatically reduced the SA this lens produces and it still seems to have good bokeh. If those observations are correct, then it would appear that they didn't rely on undercorrected SA to produce the good bokeh. IMO, that would be a good thing.

Incidentally, I think one of the reasons that aspherical lenses get a rap for having bad bokeh is not only the onion rings that they sometimes show in highlights, but also because asphericals reduce SA and if you are relying on undercorrected SA to make good bokeh the aspherical will increase sharpness at the expense of bokeh. This makes asphericals a mixed blessing. Hence another reason that a lens designer might want to go away from undercorrected SA as a means to good bokeh.

I'd settle with a really, really good 25/2 in FE mount. Reasonably size -between a Distagon and a Biogon-. No need to be a real APO but very little CA. No mustache distorsion or field curvature, please. Zeiss can call it Otus, Sonnar or whatever, I'm not fussy about names.

Can't wait to see Otus test results! I feel like the current ZE/ZF lineup already contains excellent APO options for short teles, so my best guess is the next Otus release will be a wide 1.4. Since Sigma is crushing 35mm at 1.4, an Otus might not be able to offer much more. 24 1.4 is far enough away from 35 where the perspective may be of use to pros. Seems like if you want to know what the next Otus will be, go look at the offerings from the Leica S system. The Otus 55mm is basically a 35mm/FF-format equivalent of the 70mm leica S medium format.

The Sigma is a tad sharper, has less CA and AF. Other than that I find the Zeiss more desirable in almost every way, boke, rendering, build quality, MF, ... If Zeiss does indeed release an Otus 35/1.4, the price will be so high that the Sigma is not even in competition any more, but becomes a budget option. I don't see that many people will be willing to pay Otus prices for a lens which is a bit better, but has no AF.